Vlassenroot - The Lords Resistance Army

Towards the end of 2008 rumours were circulating in northern Uganda and southern Sudan that a high-quality military strike against the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) was imminent. The United States African Command (AFRICOM) was providing intelligence, fuel and equipment to the Ugandan army, and more than a dozen US military advisers and analysts were on the ground. They could be found in bars boasting that a surgical strike against Joseph Kony and his senior commanders was straightforward. Everything was ready to go. It was just a question of pushing the button. Keeping preparations secret was clearly not part of the plan.

The button was pushed on 14 December 2008. Collaborating with the armies of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and southern Sudan, and assisted by the USA, the Ugandan Peoples Defence Force (UPDF) launched Operation Lightning Thunder. This was an attack on the LRA in Garamba National Park of the DRC, just across the border from Sudan. Here Kony was known to have a base, a few days walk from Ri-Kwangba, where he had occasionally turned up to meet with various peace negotiators since 2006. Surgical air strikes were the precursor of a land offensive. This would surely be the end of the LRA once and for all.

Almost immediately after the initial aerial onslaught, Ugandas president, Yoweri Museveni, proclaimed a military success. But it was not the first time he had suggested that the LRA problem had been resolved, and others were less convinced. In typically combative style, Andrew Mwenda, the well-known Ugandan journalist, observed that the attack was certainly the right thing to do but it was was ill-timed, poorly planned and incompetently executed. When the land forces arrived on the scene, Kony and his senior commanders had already escaped. In another article based on interviews with seven Ugandan generals, Mwenda went on to suggest that the UPDF and its allies were not adequately resourced to be able to hunt for Kony in the dense forests, where his forces were so adept at guerrilla tactics. Already the LRA had managed to move behind the UPDF front line, and was attacking the local population around Mundri, deep in southern Sudan. As one of the generals interviewed by Mwenda observed:

Remember that LRA has 20 years experience in this kind of warfare [] They have learnt how to survive under such conditions. Thus, regardless of our moral assessment of Kony, we need to recognise that he is an excellent strategist and tactician. Otherwise we would have defeated him long ago like we did with other rebellions.

More than a year later, Kony remains at large. There are reports that the LRA have been resupplied by air drops from their allies in Khartoum, that they have become engaged in the Darfur conflict, and that they are key players in schemes aimed at undermining the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between north and south Sudan. Hard evidence for such assertions is absent, but there are no doubts about the abductions and killings. Accounts of lips being cut off or padlocked among the Azande people of the most affected region are the stuff of nightmares. Kony may no longer be terrorizing his own Acholi neighbours in northern Uganda, but he has reasserted his capacity to spread fear and skilfully wage a guerrilla campaign. No one knows how many veteran combatants are still with him perhaps just a couple of hundred. But he understands very well how to punch above his weight.